The Case of the Crime King

Chapter 4

Thursday morning, December 5th, a phone call came for me at Robbery Division.

When I said, “Friday speaking,” a hoarse voice said, “This is Smoky, Lieutenant.”

Smoky Fallon, alias seven other names, was a police informer.

I said, “Yeah?”

Smoky said, “Hear you’re looking for Big Julie Martin.”

“Uh-huh,” I said.

“Well, I can’t tell you where he’s holed up.”

I waited for him to go on, and when he didn’t, said sourly, “Then why are you wasting my time?”

“Thought you might like to know I saw him last night.”

“Where?”

“Pinto’s on Third. Him and a pal.”

“What pal?”

“Little guy,” Smoky said. “Never saw him before.”

“Pinto’s a regular hangout of Big Julie’s?” I asked.

“Naw. He’s got no regular places. He likes to hit all the bars when he’s on the town.”

“You don’t know who his pal was, huh?”

“Tried to find out,” Smoky said. “Asked the barkeep who he was, after they went out. He didn’t know. One thing, though.”

“What’s that?”

“The little guy has quite a nose. Big, and kind of hooked. Guess that’s how he got his nickname.”

I said, “Huh?”

“Big Julie called him ‘Beak.’”

10:02 a.m. Frank and I went up to the Stat’s Office and had the nickname “Beak” run through the moniker file. Stat’s surprised us by turning only seven possibles. Apparently it wasn’t a very common nickname.

From Stat’s we went to the Golden Horseshoe, and immediately hit pay dirt. The first package we checked was that of Harry (Beak) Strite, age twenty-nine, five feet seven inches, a hundred thirty-five pounds. He exactly fitted the descriptions of both the second market bandit and the companion of the assault suspect.

Harry Strite had a longer record than Jules Martin. He had spent seven of his twenty-nine years behind bars. He had arrests for ADW, grand theft-auto, armed robbery, simple assault, and narcotics. He had two convictions, one for the armed robbery, the other on the narcotics charge. All the other charges had been dropped for lack of evidence.

We took the suspect’s mugg shot down to Homicide and showed it to Tom Anderson and Joe LaMonica. They immediately began to phone their witnesses to come in and look at Strite’s picture.

Frank phoned James Dehelvey at his store for the same purpose. When he hung up, he looked puzzled.

“Says he can’t come over,” Frank told me.

“Then well go over,” I said.

“It’s not just that, Joe.”

I looked at him. “No?”

“Acted like he didn’t want to look at any more pictures anywhere.”

10:58 a.m. We arrived at Dehelvey’s Supermarket. The victim greeted us with marked lack of enthusiasm and led us over to a corner near the vegetable rack, where we were out of earshot of clerks and customers.

I handed him a stack of mugg shots that included the suspect’s picture. He barely glanced at any of them as he shuffled through the stack. He handed it back.

“Don’t see either man in there,” he said.

Neither Frank nor I said anything. We merely looked at Dehelvey without expression on our faces.

“Well, if that’s all, I’ll get back to work,” he said uncomfortably.

“It’s not quite all,” I said. I separated Harry Strite’s mugg shot from the rest and held it in front of his nose. “Ever see this man before?”

He gave the picture one frightened look and averted his eyes. “No, sir. Never.”

I put all the pictures in my pocket. Frank and I exchanged glances. Then I looked back at Dehelvey.

“What was it?” I asked. “A phone call?”

“What?” he said, startled.

“Somebody got to you.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Dehelvey said uneasily.

“I’ll spell it out. Somebody phoned you a threat.”

“No, no,” he protested. “Nobody phoned me.”

“You mean he showed up in person?” Frank asked.

Dehelvey licked his lips and gazed from one to the other of us. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

I said, “Come off it, Mr. Dehelvey. You’ve been threatened and you’re scared. We don’t blame you. But you haven’t thought things through.”

“I haven’t been threatened,” he insisted.

“Look,” I said. “These men can’t hurt you from prison. We know who they are, and we’re bound to get them. Until we do, we’ll furnish you a police guard.”

“I don’t need a guard,” he said, with the beginning of anger. “I just don’t recognize any of those pictures.”

We continued to talk to the victim for some time, but were unable to shake his story. The more we argued, the more determined he became. We finally gave up and returned to the office.

2:17 p.m. Sergeant Anderson came over to Robbery Division with the news that all six of Homicide’s witnesses had positively identified the second suspect. We told him of our experience with our witness, and of our belief that he had been threatened bodily harm if he identified his assailants. Andy said that apparently there had been no such threats in the assault case.

8:27 p.m. The phone was ringing when I returned to my apartment from having dinner out. It was Frank calling.

“I was just going to hang up,” Frank said, in a relieved tone. “It rang so long, I thought you were out.”

“I was,” I said. “Just walked in as it was ringing. What’s up?”

“Andy just phoned me. He got an informer’s tip on where Big Julie and Strite are holed up.”

“Yeah?”

“Some woman’s apartment over in the MacArthur Park area. Andy wants us to meet him at the southeast corner of the park in a half hour.”

“The place staked out meantime?” I asked.

“No. Andy’s tip said the suspects never start out for an evening before ten. We’ll have it staked out ourselves before that.”

“Check,” I said. “See you in half an hour.”